Wallin, Duffy and Brazeau, Three Peas In A Conservative Pod

Senators Pamela Wallin, Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau have all been serving in the Senate since 2009. These were all hand-picked people and personally appointed to the Senate by prime minister Steven Harper. All three of these senators have resigned from the Conservative caucus after an independent audit, conducted by DeloitteCanada, found that they are guilty of incorrect submitting and being paid tax payers money for traveling and in some cases traveling expenses and living expenses. I mean I just do not get it, are they not paid enough already; do they really need to nickel and dime the Canadian taxpayers for every deduction just because it is available to them and then go as far as to misuse the system by seeking to be repaid for things that they see as a grey area in the law. I say it is fraud and an intentional fraud that would have the ordinary citizen of Canada prosecuted to the full extent of the law. As the Tories get ready to track down and collect money from fraudulent claims of us the ordinary citizen, is it not just a little rich and hypocritical of Steven Harper and his friends to back those who are doing the same thing with the expenses for travel and living allowance?

Pamela Wallin:Harper has continued to back up Pamela Wallin as though he can not read, or as though he just can not admit that he has made yet another bad judgement when it came to the character of people he chooses to put his faith in and put into important advisory positions and positions of political power. In a time when most Canadians are having a hard time just surviving, making ends meet and some not being able to do even that, I find it obscene that the prime minister of Canada, in good conscience could stand before Canadians and have this to say of the $321,000 in travel expenses this senator has claimed since September 2010, “Her travel costs, (Pamela Wallin’s) are comparable to any parliamentarian travelling from that particular area of the country over that period of time,” Harper said in the House of Commons in February. “For instance, last year Senator Wallin spent almost half of her time in the province she represents in the Senate.” This does not answer however why Pamela was out campaigning for the Conservatives and claiming the expenses for the trips as doing Senate business. I do not understand why people hold political office think that ignorance of the law means they are not guilty of committing a crime and think that they are not punishable for breaking the law anyway like the rest of Canadians. Maybe if they were held to the law of Canada as it pertains to the average citizen the crooks, the greedy and scam artists and all other people looking to make a fast buck would not run for office and these situations would not keep coming up.

Mike Duffy: I think Mike Duffy knew he was guilty of bilking the system from the start and just could not help himself. Mike Duffy claims he did not know, but unlike Pamela Wallin he resisted the audit by Deloitte Canada from the very start. people with nothing to hide or who think they have nothing to hide do not usually resist audits, but welcome them so that they can keep their image and their integrity intact. Innocent people do not refuse to let police search their homes, and people who do not think that they are guilty of expense fraud or tax fraud do not resist audits. The problem for me is that Mike Duffy in my opinion is a bold face liar and a con man. Mike Duffy’s story to date and up to his resigning from the Conservative caucus plays out the same as Pamela Wallin’s with one little twist, he has managed to make not only Steven Harper look like a fool and all of his elected colleagues as well. The guy owed $90,000 dollars for dipping into the cookie jar and instead of making arrangements with the Senate to have it taken from his pay in the form of garnished wages he claims he is going to pay it back out of his own pocket. What is wrong with that you say? Well the problem is that Mike only pretends to pay it back on his own and instead gets a gift from none other than Steven Harper’s right hand man and chief of staff, Nigel Wright who wrote a personal check to cover the $90,00 worth of ill-gotten gains of Mike Duffy. the problem with this is that it was again done in secret and only came into the light of day when the information was leaked to the press. Mike Duffy’s supporters in the Conservative party try to explain away the payment of the $90,000 by saying that they just wanted to see that the Canadian tax payers were paid back promptly and that seeing that mike Duffy was having financial problems this was the solution that was best for everyone concerned and di not involve tax payer money. Problem with this is that when confronted Mike Duffy claims that he had already taken out a loan with the Royal Bank to cover the money he allegedly claimed for making the Harper government a liar, very ill-informed, or both.

Patrick Brazeau: Has got to be the biggest embarrassment to Steven Harper and a clear case of Harper’s inability to judge personal character, the list of people the prime minister has brought into his cabinet, put into the Senate and brought into his confidence as advisors who have been forced to resign for one reason or another is growing and if nothing else says that he shares the same values of those committing these illegal acts, or that he is incapable of judging sound character. The First Nations call this guy an embarrassment, who has no credibility left in their community and he was thrown from caucus and barred from entering the chamber when charges were brought that alleged he assaulted his wife. Now we find out that after examining the audits, the committee ordered Mr. Brazeau to repay $48,744. To which Patrick Brazeau has countered that he intends to fight a committee order that he pay back the $48,744 in false living and travel expenses he was paid. I might add that Liberal Senator Mac Harb, who was ordered to repay $51,482 and possibly much more, has hired a lawyer and is vowing a legal challenge. This means that on top of the fraud Canadian taxpayers will be dragged through a long costly court process as these guilty as hell fraudulent, remorseless senators. That make 3 Harper choices to the Senate that are guilty of abusing the system to bilk Canadians out of hundreds of thousands of dollars who claim they did not know they were doing anything wrong.

Bruce Carson: We have ‘Bruce Carson’ to show us that this is not an isolated problem for the prime minister it is a recurring theme in his judgement or what he sees as not important when judging a person’s character. Bruce Carson is a former aide and senior advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper. He was convicted of two counts of fraud, one was during the 1980s and again in 1990. His 1980 conviction resulted in prison time and his disbarment by the Law Society of Upper Canada for two counts of defrauding clients. On February 6, 2006, he began employment with the Prime Minister’s Office as an aide and senior advisor. Carson left the Prime Minister’s office in 2008. After leaving the Prime Minister’s office in 2008, he began employment as executive director of the Canada School of Energy and Environment on August 14, 2008. The institution was set up by the University of Calgary, the University of Alberta and the University of Lethbridge. It is funded by a grant from the Canadian federal government. The organization coordinates clean energy research. He returned to the Prime Minister’s office for a short time in January 2009, then later that year, returned to the Canada School of Energy and Environment. During his employment there, Carson accrued personal expenses, which the organization had to pay after his departure. On July 27, 2012, Carson was charged with influence peddling by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He is scheduled to attend a closed-door, judicial pre-trial October 17, 2012, and then make an appearance in remand court on October 22.

If the prime minister did not know of all of this my question is why not? Why was this guy not checked out and if he was why was it considered not important. This is an example of the prime minister’s inability to judge character, or can be used to see what the prime minister and the people advising him think are either relevent facts or not relevant facts that need to be investigated before putting them in important positions in the government itself or in the public service of Canadians. It speaks to this government and its leaders position when it comes to patronage appointments, which seems to be that as long as a person can bring money into party, or agrees with his every word and policy. If the prime minister was a private citizen you could say oh well and his company would probably fire him for repeated lapses of judgement, but he is the head of the country and has a majority government and allows him to be untouchable, putting him and them above the law. Even though his judgement or lack of it could adversely affect a whole nation and the welfare of all its people and even when he goes as far as to reward the cheats, or cover up for the culprits he has chosen and appointed, Steven Harper remains above the law continuing to make a mockery not only of democracy, but of the Canadian justice system. When Harper got his majority government he promised to make Canada unrecognisable to anyone looking for the old Canada and I say by shutting down democracy in the upper and lower chamber of the house and putting himself and his followers above the law he has kept his promise and perverted these to areas beyond recognition.